1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an apparatus for collecting and eliminating paint mist contained in exhaust gas generated from a painting installment or for separating and collecting paint waste from water used for cleaning and eliminating paint adhered to floors or walls at a painting booth, and more particularly to a paint waste separator-collector apparatus comprising a separator tank for receiving water containing paint waste and causing the waste to float up to the surface, a weir for permiting the paint waste along with overflowing water from the separator tank into a collector container and a water level adjusting mechanism for switchably providing a paint waste accumulating condition in which a water level in the separator tank is lowered for the water not to flow over the weir thereby causing the floating paint waste to accumulate inside the separator tank and a paint waste collecting condition in which the water level in the separator tank is raised for the excess water to flow over the weir into the collector container.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In the case of a conventional apparatus of the above-described type, if the water level in the separator tank is too lowered in the paint waste accumulating condition, the water level need be raised considerably when the paint waste collecting condition is needed, whereby the paint waste collecting efficiency is deteriorated. On the contrary, if the tank water level in the paint waste accumulating condition is too close to the overflowing level of the weir, there occurs inadvertent overflowing of the water, whereby the waste collecting efficiency is deteriorated or the paint waste is unintentionally overflown before the collector container is replaced.
Therefore, it becomes important to maintain accurately and stably the water level in the separator tank to be lower by a proper distance than the overflowing level of the weir. For this purpose, there is disclosed, for example, in a Japanese patent application published under U.S. Pat. No. 4,100,066 water level adjusting means adapted for finely adjusting the water level by controllably varying air pressure inside a closed type separator tank.
However, with the above method, a complicated construction is necessary for the fine adjustment of the air pressure and further the construction of the separator tank needed for the pressure adjustment also tends to be complicated. As the result, there occur such problems as increase in the costs of the installment or increase in the troubles due to the complexity of the apparatus. Therefore, there has been room for improvement in the reliability of the apparatus.